Aura
In parapsychology and spiritual practice, an aura is a supposed field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object like the halo or aureola in religious art.
The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular
power or holiness. It is said that all objects and all living things
manifest such an aura. Often it is held to be perceptible, whether
spontaneously or with practice: such perception is at times linked with
the third eye of Indian spirituality. Various writers associate various personality traits with the colors of different layers of the aura. It has also been described as a map of the thoughts and feelings surrounding a person.
In Iran the aura is known as farr or "glory": it is depicted in association with Zoroastrian kings.
Ideas of the aura are well represented in Indian religions. In tantric tradition of Hinduism, aura represents the subtle body of seven colours.[citation needed] In many Hindu paintings of gods and goddesses, aura is marked on their backhead. The Buddhist flag represents the colours seen around the enlightened Buddha. In Jainism the concept of Lesya relates colours to mental and emotional dispositions. To the Indian teacher Meher Baba the aura is of seven colours, associated with the subtle body and its store of mental and emotional impressions. Spiritual practice gradually transforms this aura into a spiritual halo. Hindu and Buddhist sources often link these colours to Kundalini energy and the chakras.
In the classical western mysticism of neoplatonism and Kabbalah the aura is associated with the lustre of the astral body,
a subtle body identified with the planetary heavens, which were in turn
associated with various mental faculties in an elaborate system of
correspondences with colours, shapes, sounds, perfumes etc.
The symbolism of light found in the Bible is at times associated with the idea of the aura or "body of light": similar interpretations are found in Islamic traditions.
According to the literature of Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and Archeosophy
also, each colour of the aura has a meaning, indicating a precise
emotional state. A complete description of the aura and its colours was
provided by Charles Leadbeater, a theosophist of the 19th century. The works of Leadbeater were later developed by Palamidessi and others.
The British occultist W.E. Butler connected auras with clairvoyance and etheric,
mental and emotional emanations. He classified the aura into two main
types: etheric and spiritual. Auras are thought to serve as a visual
measure of the state of the health of the physical body. Robert Bruce classifies auras into three types: etheric, main, and spiritual.
According to Bruce auras are not actual light but a translation of
other unknown sensory readings that is added to our visual processing.
They are not seen in complete darkness and cannot be seen unless some
portion of the person or object emitting the aura can also be seen.
The British Healer, clairvoyant and author Paul Lambillion in his book
"Auras and Colours" writes of three visible bodies or layers in the
auric field that can be observed whether or not in the physical presence
of the individual subject since the aura is not a three dimensional
phenomenon and limited to such parameters.
Glenn Morris, grandmaster of the Hoshin Roshi Ryu
lineage, included perception of the aura in his training of advanced
martial artists. His experience was that it consisted of multiple
layers. He described the most easily visible of these as being "light
and denser than the air in which the body is immersed", typically half
to quarter of an inch thick and correlating with the etheric body of an individual. Around this he described a yard thick egg-shaped layer reflecting hormonal state that he linked to the emotional body, and outside this, other barely perceptible layers corresponding to the mental body and beyond. Recalling the aura of another sōke, he wrote, "The first time I saw Hatsumi, he was running continuous bright, lime, neon green a foot wide and was so easy to see he would flash in bright sunlight".
For holistic healers, aura reading is the art of investigating the
human energy field, or the energy fields of other sentient beings. It is
a basis for using techniques of holistic healing, and includes such
practices as bioenergetics, energy medicine, energy spirituality, and energy psychology.
